"They will respond with a strange-looking message and instructions to write 'only' between these two lines asking for detailed numbers and codes," JoAnne wrote. "You might get a follow-up response, but mine just told me what I already knew. No help was offered."

However, another technology company gets kudos from her.

"This morning I was reading on my Kindle (electronic book reader), and it froze. I couldn't change the page, go to the home screen, and even turning off the switch did nothing to the display," she wrote.

"I logged on to Amazon and went to the Kindle section. There was the coolest thing. I put in my phone number, and within 10 seconds my phone rang. Within 20 more seconds, I was talking to a live human who spoke lovely English. He told me how to find the reset, what to do, and stayed with me until it was working again. Amazon gets bonus points!"

As well it should. But here was the real kicker from JoAnne: "It seems logical to me that businesses would want to keep customers happy, but there sure is a difference in the way they think it should be done."

Too true. It seems that, for every good customer service experience I have, there are one or two on the other side of the ledger. Maybe if we all pay enough attention to this issue and make our feelings about it clear in a firm, but kind, way, we'll have more of the good experiences and fewer of the bad.

I'd still like to hear your thoughts on this topic. Or, if you have a financial question, I'd like to help find an answer to that, too. Send correspondence to gkratz@desnews.com or to the Deseret News, P.O. Box 1257, Salt Lake City, UT 84110.

E-MAIL: gkratz@desnews.com